True tiki culture: Moku O Keawe’s place of refuge

The tiki, the carved, stylized human image that (to many) is synonymous with tropical cocktails and tacky souvenirs, has a much more dignified heritage than today’s replicas suggest. In Hawai’i, the best place to see ki’i — as they’re known in Hawaiian — is in a setting that conveys their somber spiritual origins: Pu’uhonua O Hōnaunau, the historic “City of Refuge” on Moku o Keawe.

Don’t recognize that last place? Literally “the island of Keawe,” it’s a poetic name for the island of Hawai’i that commemorates Chief Keawe’ikekahiali’iokamoku, the great-grandfather of King Kamehameha I. An imposing cluster of larger-than-life-sized ki’i guard Hale o Keawe (“house of Keawe”), a reconstructed temple originally built to house his bones, at the Pu’uhonua national historic site.

Jeanne Cooper / Special to SFGate

These ki’i stand guard at Pu’uhonua O Hōnaunau, a historic and sacred site on the island of Hawai’i.

This wahi pana, or special place, was already renowned among Hawaiians as a place of refuge — a place women, children and other noncombatants could find sanctuary during wartime, or where someone who had violated the kapu belief system could flee to have the penalty (in some cases, death) lifted. According to the National Park Service history of the area:

Hale o Keawe replaced ‘Ale’ale’a as the temple (heiau) of asylum at the pu’uhonua. As the years went on, the bones of other ali’i were placed inside the temple and by 1829, there were 23 sets of bones. …

…The temple was framed of kauila wood, and thatched with dried ti leaves. The leaves were carefully and artfully knotted and tied. In front of the temple and extending from each end was a surface of smooth lava rocks. The platform was surrounded by a fence of palm tree trunks. There were carved images (ki’i) all around the outside of the temple, and several more inside.

In 1819, the Hale o Keawe was no longer a heiau when Liholiho abolished the old religion. The house and its contents were undisturbed until 1825 when most of these images were removed and taken to England in the early nineteenth century. Several of them were placed in public and private collections, and are on display in museums today. The bones of the deified ali’i were removed from the Hale o Keawe temple in 1829 and placed in a burial cave at Ka’awaloa.

Two ki’i also stand guard over nearby Keone’ele Cove, the beautiful little inlet that only royalty were permitted to use. All the ki’i would have been carved by kahuna kālai, master carvers that took the spiritual dimension of their work seriously, as the park service history continues:

The kahuna would go to the temple and offer sacrifices and prayers to the patron spirit of his trade. It is said that when a kahuna carved an image, that he must be in a good state of mind. If he was fighting with anyone else, or had any guilt in his heart for something he had done, the ki’i would not be able to be completed. The kahuna would have to go and make peace with the person he had a conflict with, and then visit the temple before completing his work.

Stephen Katsunuma of San Francisco was one of the Hawai’i Insider readers who had no problems identifying Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau from the picture of ki’i that ran in Sunday’s photo quiz (above), and its role as “a place where violators of the law could find refuge and have their crimes absolved by a kahuna,” as he described it. “I was born in Hilo and remember visiting the City of Refuge as an elementary student on field trips. I think it’s a really amazing place,” Katsunuma wrote.

Dan Eickhoff

Keone’ele Cove, once reserved for royal use, is still off-limits.

Several readers who have been visitors to Hawai’i also appreciated the spiritual power of Pu’uhonua — as well as its proximity to some prime snorkeling, just outside the park.

“The restored location still emits an incredibly spiritual and peaceful energy as you walk amongst the Great Walls and heiaus,” wrote Dwayne Conn and Gary Dunn of Flagstaff, Ariz.

“It is also located on Hōnaunau Bay, the most beautiful snorkel experience we had in the islands. We were snorkeling above the largest honu [turtles] we had seen. The three of us floated back and forth in the swells for the longest time just enjoying each other’s company.”

Dan Eickhoff of Oakland also praised the snorkeling near the entrance to the refuge, which he calle one of his “more memorable stops” on the 2008 trip in which he proposed to his girlfriend (now wife), Dierdre:

We spent hours walking the grounds and looking at the displays, and watching the several turtles that decided to feed along the shore rocks just adjacent to the tikis you have in your picture. We took a wonderful walk out past the large heiau & old fishponds, to a palm grove by the water that truly looked like it was out of a travel magazine. Oddly enough — even though we weren’t being pursued for breaking some kapu, or under threat of having our heads bashed in –we did feel a sense of refuge from the other terrors of “modern” life … at least for the few hours we were there.

In addition to all of the above, we were given a “tip” that the [noni] trees that grow along the road to the refuge and in the parking lot — and in many places on the islands, had medicinal properties and among other things, if you applied the leaves directly to your skin it would relieve muscle aches. Since I had a pretty sore back at the time, I decided to give it a try and while I am not exactly a good scientific sample group — it really did work for me!

Thanks also to Ken Zinns of Oakland for sending in a correct answer. There’s a lot more to Pu’uhonua than we’ve mentioned here — including the more recently protected architectural sites in adjacent Ki’ilae village — so by all means plan to spend several hours exploring the site, and if you do go, please treat it with care and respect.

Jeanne Cooper / Special to SFGate

The reconstructed Hale o Keawe, a royal mausoleum, includes carefully replicated carvings known as ki’i.